Macy Gray: On How Life Is (translucent yellow vinyl) [MUSIC ON VINYL]

Why you'll love it

Music On Vinyl's translucent yellow pressing of Macy Gray's debut, which sold seven million copies worldwide. "I Try" reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100 and won the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.

This edition

• Translucent yellow vinyl
• Ten tracks

About the album

Macy Gray arrived in July 1999 with a voice nobody could mistake for anyone else's, raspy and sweet at once, and On How Life Is made her a star. Andrew Slater produced it for Epic, and it went on to sell 3.4 million copies in the US alone, still the biggest record of her career.

"I Try" did the heavy lifting, topping the charts in Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, but the album is deeper than one hit: "Do Something" borrows from OutKast and Nice & Smooth, "Caligula" and "Sex-O-Matic Venus Freak" show off her wilder side, and "Still" is a quiet heartbreaker. Q magazine called it a "confident, bluesy soul debut". Twenty-odd years on, people are still trying to sing "I Try" at karaoke, and still finding out how hard that voice is to copy.

A confident, bluesy soul debut.
Q magazine

Tracklist

Listen

Out November 20, 2026 on Music On Vinyl (cat# MOVLPY767), a reissue of the 1999 album.